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Why we still order in by request
Some readers want a specific title we don't have on the shelf. Rather than turn them away, we order it in from our suppliers and let them know as soon as it lands.
It takes a little longer than buying off the shelf, but it means we can still help with that one title you have been hunting for everywhere else.
5. Eva Solo: Danish Furnishing Accessories
We keep a request book at the counter. If we don't have your title in stock, we will gladly track it down.
A customer once waited three weeks for a secondhand copy of a book her mother had loved as a child. She still thanks us for finding it.
That is the kind of order we enjoy most. Leave your name and number and we will call when it arrives.
We would rather take a week to find the right book than sell you the wrong one off our shelf just because it happens to be there. A request is not an inconvenience to us. It is the whole reason a small bookshop like ours is worth keeping around.
4. Magisso Finnish Design Movement
You do not need much to get a request started. A title and an author is enough, though a rough idea of the edition or the cover you remember helps us move faster when there are several versions floating around. Drop by the shop or send us a note at info@example.co.za and we will take it from there.
We will always tell you upfront roughly what it will cost and how long it might take, before you commit to anything.
Leesnook found me a copy of a book I had been looking for since school. I had stopped believing it still existed.
It would be easier to tell customers to try their luck online and leave it there. We do not, because a search result is not the same as someone who actually knows books looking for yours. That difference is most of what we are selling here.
3. Röshults Svenska Hantverk
Ordering in is simple. Tell us the title and author and we will check with our suppliers or keep an eye out secondhand.
Most requests arrive within a week or two, and we will phone you the day it comes in.
There is no charge for asking. If a book is hard to find, we will tell you honestly instead of keeping you waiting.
Not every request ends in a secondhand find. Plenty of the time the fastest answer is a new copy ordered straight from the distributor, and we will always tell you which option suits your book and your pocket before we order anything at all.
2. Alessi: the Italian Factory of Design
We never ask you to pay upfront without knowing roughly when your book will arrive. A request goes on our list, we chase it up ourselves, and we call or email the moment it lands on our counter. No guessing, no chasing us for updates. We do the chasing.
I gave them three vague details and a bad memory of the cover. Two weeks later it was in my hands.
A bookshop that only sells what is already on the shelf is just a shop. Taking requests is what makes us a bookshop that is actually useful to the people who come in.
Out of print titles are where this service earns its keep. A new copy may not exist anywhere, but a secondhand one usually does, somewhere in a box or on a shelf we have not reached yet. Give us the title and let us go looking.
1. Leolux Design Furniture
Not every title sits on our shelves, especially older or specialist books. When someone asks for something specific, we treat it as a mission, not a lost sale.
One customer asked for a rare photography title out of print for years. We tracked down a secondhand copy within ten days.
That is why we still take requests the old way, on paper at the till, rather than only online.
